Blood, Above Pesos, Proves a Lifeline for Those in Need

José Alvarez, a window installer with droopy eyelids and thick forearms, fingered the slip of paper that told him his place was at the back of the line -- way at the back. Number 45, he said dejectedly, and slumped against the wall.

Alvarez knows Xoco well. He radiates health. His family doesn't.

Alvarez had previously given blood to pay for both of his brothers' kidney surgeries and for some procedure that his brother-in-law needed but that Alvarez never quite understood. Somewhere in between there was a cousin who hit him up for half a pint, too. On this day, he was here for his sister's heart surgery.

"If you can help, it's good," he said.

At 8:20 a.m., a man with a crew cut -- his face contorted in an angry grimace -- hobbled up on crutches, trailed by two police officers. The women next to Alvarez whispered and pointed.

"Prisoner," one of them said.

With nothing to do -- no magazine rack or television, no radio or newspaper stand -- the prisoner's arrival qualified as entertainment, or at least a welcome distraction. The blood donors cast quick glances at the prisoner, who languidly examined an X-ray of his shattered knee.

A woman behind the orthopedics counter called out a name and the policemen shuffled their prisoner through a door. The donors resumed staring at the floor, resigned to the endless wait after 15 minutes of diversion. Many had been here since 6 a.m.

Across the corridor, Cristian David Reyes Trujillo and Raúl Morales were getting acquainted. They had met for the first time the day before, the day a doctor told Morales that his wife would need an emergency Caesarean section to give birth to their second child.

The announcement put Morales in a fix. His wife has rare O-negative blood, and he had to find someone with matching blood.

In some places, this might have been a daunting task. But in Mexico, where the World Bank estimates half the population lives below the poverty line, a person's blood type is essentially common knowledge. It's the sort of thing that gets talked about at sidewalk taco stands and, thankfully for Morales, at bars.

Morales's aunt is a regular at a bar near her home and she just happened to know that her favorite bartender -- Reyes Trujillo -- had O-negative blood. She made the introduction, and Reyes Trujillo agreed without hesitation. Someday, he figured, he might need the same.